Into the Apocalypse: Saving My Favorite Villain-Chapter 89: New Character

My heart was pounding furiously in my breast, as if it were trying to break loose from my body with its wild, frantic beats.

Every beat pounded through my chest with a ferocity that left me gasping for air, my head reeling, my mind empty of everything except the rhythmic pounding that echoed through my ears.

All of it happened too quickly.

Extremely suddenly.

So suddenly that my mind could hardly comprehend it.

One minute we were moving—tearing down the road with engines roaring, tires screeching on the destroyed asphalt.

The next minute, the universe twisted with a frenzy of violence, as if space itself were being folded in upon itself by an invisible hand that was shaking reality.

I hardly managed to open my eyes as I sensed that we had finally stopped moving.

My body was still reeling, left hanging in a sort of residual feel of movement that would not dissipate.

It seemed as if Cassel had finally found solid ground between his legs, as the never-ending spin finally came to a halt—but my mind reeled with dizzying speeds, as if I had been flung through impossible angles and speeds with merciless abandon.

My stomach churned.

My eyes swam.

I blinked once.

Twice.

Finally, slowly—painfully—forcing

And then, finally, my vision cleared enough for the blur to recede, for the world to re-form around me, the first thing I saw was our car.

Or rather—

What was left of it.

The car was being crushed, twisted, and squeezed like some kind of scrap metal by enormous tree roots: thick, monstrous things that seemed to live.

These were dyed in violent purple and crimson hues, as if soaked in blood that never dried.

The metal framework screamed in agony with the force, warped out of recognition, folded inward like paper crushed by a colossal hand.

It was horrific to see.

No—

It’s like something out of a horror movie that would keep you up for weeks afterward.

Suddenly, for a brief moment, I forgot the way I breathed.

Of course, being held firmly in Cassel’s embrace took the edge off my fear.

His grip was firm—steady—and unyielding.

He was my anchor, a sturdy wall between me and the maelstrom swirling around us.

Nevertheless, despite how safe I was in his embrace, the image before my eyes still seemed macabre.

This was no longer an alien world for me.

Although my mindset was more robust than that of any ordinary person—and more robust than it should have been—I was not unaffected.

I had quickly gotten to terms with the fact that zombies are real in this world.

Partly because of my abilities.

Firstly, partly because I had watched numerous horror movies, as well as some zombie movies too, in my previous lifetime.

I knew what monsters looked like.

They were things built

I knew what a cruel world this could be.

And yet—

There

Being exposed to horrors through a screen is very different from actually seeing them with your own eyes.

Between fiction and reality.

Between safety and death.

A cold, creeping chill spread through my veins as I watched the monstrous roots constrict their grip on my car, their wet, glistening surfaces glowing in the low light.

These weren’t mindless zombies.

These were something else entirely.

Something worse.

Suddenly, a loud curse broke through the tense silence.

"Damn it—Is that a human being at the center of the mutated tree?"

"Robin’s voice cut through clearly, his tone laced with shock."

My breath caught.

My eyes jerked in the direction of where he was pointing.

Some distance from the root systems busily devouring our car was a huge tree.

It loomed over the devastated terrain, casting a suffocating shadow.

Its hue was a perfect match for the roots—itself an unnatural combination of purple and crimson that looked almost too alive, too vivid, to be found in nature.

This was their obvious source.

It had a stout trunk with multiple giant limbs that were firmly rooted into the ground like anchors, as if the ground had yielded to it.

Leaves were absent from the tree.

No, not at all.

Nothing but major branches and small ones extend in all directions, jagged and twisted, with a monstrous outline against the sky.

That was—

Of course—

It

One could not ignore the man tied to the center of the tree.

My heart skipped violently.

His body was visible only in pieces.

"The tree almost swallowed him whole."

Only a part of his face was left visible, white and immobile, with a section of his breast flattened against the trunk.

The rest of his body had sunk into the tree trunk, absorbed to such an extent that it was hard to distinguish between his skin and the tree.

He looked.

Attached to it.

Bound.

Impr

Only just visible to the naked eye.

"Oh my God..." I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth as my fingers trembled.

"The words slipped out of my mouth before I could catch them," I said, my voice thin and shaky.

I heard the voices around me as Cassel’s men assembled before their leader, forming a circle of protection around me.

Their faces were stern, their bodies tensed as they held a muffled discussion.

"Boss, should we attack?" Henry asked with a sharp edge to his voice.

"It seems like the tree is feeding on the man or something like that. Notice how the skin of the tree is molding itself to his body as if his blood is being sucked by the vines," he says.

That statement knotted my stomach.

"This is not normal," Frederick continued, with confusion in his tone.

"Perhaps he is a super-powered one as well? That is why the mutated tree is feeding on him as nourishment."

These words were heavy in the air.

But Robin was the last one to speak.

And as he did, he had a pause in his tone, hesitation—uncertainty.

It would hardly be an exaggeration to term Cassel’s men "professional killers."

They were very well-trained.

Efficient.

Deadly when necessary.

But they had one fatal flaw.

They were too kind.

You must not be misled by their accurate combat techniques or their bloody pasts.

They were all former soldiers or mercenaries—men who had lived through war, who had killed and survived and carried those memories with them.

However, they never killed randomly.

Most of their targets had been professional assassins, criminals, or monsters that threatened innocent lives.

And every time someone died at their hands, it was in self-defense.

They were not madmen.

Nor were they bloodthirsty enough to slay without rhyme or reason.

This is exactly what they were struggling with at the current point in their development.

Now, with an innocent person—a living human—caught in the tree, they could not proceed with attacking it by burning it down without any hesitation.

"Boss

"What do we do?"

"What is this thing? Is it some sort of monster?"

"I can try burning it," Liz said.

As soon as her name popped into my head, my chest constricted with pain.

It was never the same after the zombie outbreak, after her mind had been controlled. She had changed.

She had become very formal with me, with everyone, as if setting up invisible walls around herself.

She uttered no more words than were absolutely necessary.

Acted like she was keeping

Nobody held her responsible.

That is, she kept blaming herself.

Ashamed of her mental weakness.

Ashamed of the dark, shameful thoughts that had let a zombie child control her mind.

I had observed her training herself to the point where she was pushing herself harder and harder, as if the answer to getting rid of her guilt was to work herself to the point of exhaustion.

She stopped trying to get close to Henry.

She neither tried to make any connections with other people.

It was painful to watch.

It

I felt sorry for her—

However, I knew that she did not need my sympathy either.

And I knew that one day, she would find herself again.

She would find her own happiness.

Because I could see it.

Courage.

While everyone

Her unwavering will.

Liz hadn’t been riding with us in the car.

She had just arrived with the others.

Some men from the vehicles that had escaped being crushed into metallic footballs were also gathered nearby, placing themselves far out of reach of the mutated tree with weapons at the ready but unmoving.

A discussion was in progress, but I paid little heed to it.

My eyes were fixed on the tree before us.

More Specifically—

_On the mysterious figure trapped inside it._

He looked small. He wore

Unbelievably so

Delicate

So fragile: as if one puff of air could break him apart.

Despite his appearance to be a grown male, his frailness was apparent, evident in every line etched into his face, with each inch of skin exposed to the air.

This scene.

This fate.

This agony.

How he had been captured, consumed, displayed like some gruesome offering—

All of it seemed to conspire to

This man—-

My breath hitched abruptly.

I knew him.

---

Matthew was surrounded by darkness.

He felt nothing.

Saw nothing.

Heard nothing.

Sensed nothing at all.

It was as if he were trapped in a pitch-black labyrinth, suspended over an endless abyss.

Every second that passed was hell—an agony he wished would end as quickly as possible.

Matthew could do nothing but pity himself.

Pity the outcome of his life.

Pity his past, his future, and everything he had endured of injustice, sorrow, and grief.

There had never been a single happy memory in his life.

Not once—not even for a fleeting moment—had he felt love or warmth.

From the instant he opened his eyes to this world, all it had ever offered him was despair, oppression, and darkness.

Matthew Harvard had always wished for death, yet he never dared to bring it upon himself and fulfill that wish.

And now, it all felt like a cruel joke.

After more than twenty years of struggle, death finally came knocking at his door—no, rather, it would be more accurate to say that his beloved family had thrown him onto death’s threshold with their own hands.

What irony.

What a tragedy.

What a life you have lived, Matthew.

He slowly closed his heavy eyelids and surrendered to his end—surrendered to the darkness, and to the cold that gnawed relentlessly at his bones.

There was no point in living anymore, anyway.

Living in a world that had never given him anything.

Living without family, without support, without love, without purpose...

There was no hope to be found in that.

So let him die, then...

--- An excerpt from The Last Boy at the End of the World ---